


all devoured, feet and hands

by Kaesa



Series: Kaesa's Whumptober 2019 fics [9]
Category: Beowulf (Poem), Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cannibalism, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rated For Violence, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 01:42:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21263033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/pseuds/Kaesa
Summary: Aziraphale has been sent to deal with an uptick in demonic activity in Heorot, and, it seems, Crowley has been sent to fetch a demon chef back for Hell, and they decide to pool their resources.  But then they get abducted by a monster, so that throws a bit of a wrench into that plan.





	all devoured, feet and hands

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober 2019, for the prompts "muffled scream," "laced drink," "ransom," "beaten," and "numb."

Aziraphale took a gulp of his mead, which wasn't very good, and frowned at the hall. It was large, he supposed, and warm, but it didn't hold a flickering torch to the finery of Camelot in its heyday. Perhaps that was an unfair comparison, but really, it had _barely _been a hundred years and hardly anybody had the elaborate sort of feasts they used to, and they were always in these drafty mead halls, never in proper stone castles.

He spotted a familiar shock of red hair as he scanned the crowd of warriors, though, and hurried over to sit across from the demon. "Of course it's you," he said . "Don't know who else I was expecting. Well. I was expecting somebody I didn't have an -- an _arrangement _with."

And Crowley had the absolute nerve to look offended. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Oh, you don't? It was your suggestion," said Aziraphale. "Awful lot of demonic activity in Heorot these days, I'm told."

"No, not the arrangement," snapped Crowley, "the demonic activity. It's __not me.__" He looked very unhappy now. "If you must know, I've been sent here to deal with a coworker."

"Oh? Do tell," said Aziraphale, leaning forward.

"Angel, you really shouldn't be here," said Crowley. "_Really _shouldn't."

"I don't see why not," said Aziraphale. "I'm here to put a stop to the demonic activity, and if you're not involved in it --"

"I didn't say I wasn't _involved,_" said Crowley, "just that it wasn't me doing it. Look, if all goes well on my end the demonic activity can stop and you can report it as a success, so you might as well be on your way and --"

"Are you saying Hell sent you to _stop _a demon?" Aziraphale asked, fascinated.

"Hell sent me to call back a demon," said Crowley, rolling his eyes. (Aziraphale quite liked his eyes; they were so expressive. He was also glad Crowley had stopped wearing those smoked glass lenses he'd had back in Rome, they'd looked ridiculous.) "If you must know, Beelzebub misses her cooking."

"Beelzebub eats?" Aziraphale asked. He had never considered that Hell might have any sort of culinary culture at all.

"You wouldn't like it, trust me," said Crowley, grimacing. "I don't like it, and I'm a proper demon, so --"

"Are you, really, though?" Aziraphale asked. Because the thing was, not that he cared to admit it, but he quite liked Crowley, and he had a feeling Crowley wasn't really a proper demon at all.

"Yes? Yes, I am," said Crowley, glowering. "Very demonic, me. Extremely so."

"Of course you are," said Aziraphale. "Look, maybe I can help --"

"You want to help me retrieve Beelzebub's chef?" Crowley asked, in disbelief.

"It will reduce Earth's active demon population by one, so it stands to reason it's in Heaven's interests," said Aziraphale. "Be a nice little feather in my wing, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, but --" Crowley looked frustrated. "I just think this one might be better for me to handle _on my own,_ all right? It's -- what was that?" He looked wildly around.

"What was what?" Aziraphale asked. Nothing seemed amiss.

And then a _thing _folded itself through the door of the mead hall, although it shouldn't have been able to, and Hrothgar's warriors started screaming and grabbing their weapons.

The creature was so tall it had to duck to avoid the beams of the roof, and had several more arms and eyes than was generally socially acceptable. Patches of sickly pink scales covered it in some places, and patches of white fur in others, and its long bony fingers ended in talons. It had a beak, or something like a beak, but it also had _teeth _\-- pointed, carnivorous ones that stuck out of its beak oddly. And from its back, two red feathery wings sprouted. They were absurdly small on this giant creature.

"Oh my. _That's _not a demon," said Aziraphale.

"Nope," said Crowley.

They watched as the creature grabbed several warriors and jammed them into a large burlap sack.

"I suppose they didn't mention this when they sent you here?" Aziraphale asked Crowley.

"They did not," said Crowley. "What the _fuck._"

Aziraphale sipped at his mead. "I guess I'd better go and stop it," he said. He ignored Crowley's incoherent noises as he stood, made himself invisible to mortal eyes, and approached the monster, to get a closer look and work out what might stop it.

The monster looked right back at him. That had not been in the plan. It raked at his chest with one large, clawed hand, slicing clean through the leather armor and into his flesh, and he cried out, utterly unprepared for this fight. He didn't even have a _weapon._

Crowley was shouting something behind him but Aziraphale couldn't make it out as the creature grabbed him and shoved him into its burlap sack. The humans seemed to pass out as soon as they were thrown in here, but Aziraphale was not so lucky, and bore the full experience of being crushed by more armor-clad bodies. "Let me out of here at once!" he shouted, but he could tell the sound of it would not carry out of the sack, and even if it did, why would the creature listen to him?

"Aziraphale?" someone hissed from above him in the press of bodies. Oh, thank -- well. Perhaps best not to thank Her about this. Still, Aziraphale's heart leapt to hear him. And then he realized Crowley must also be in this trouble too, and his heart sank again.

"Crowley, what are you doing in here?" he whispered.

"Saving your sorry arse," said Crowley. "Also hopefully finding my coworker. Two griffins with one stone. Oof." The creature must have started walking, the way they were being jostled now. "When we get there, play dead. Or. Unconscious, I think. And for fuck's sake, do everything you can to hide that you're an angel!"

"Crowley... if this creature is the agent of the demon you're looking for, what do you suppose your coworker wants with all these humans?" Aziraphale asked.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then, sounding resigned, Crowley said, "Angel, I told you you wouldn't like her cooking."

_Oh,_ thought Aziraphale.

* * * 

Crowley slithered out of the big bag of humans as soon as he thought he would go unobserved, and kept close to the walls, in the shadows. The air tasted of mud and marsh when he flicked his tongue out, but also of rich spices and firewood. He seemed to be in a sort of pantry, well-stocked with onions and carrots and spices, wheels of cheese, dried fish and meat.

(He tried not to think about what kind of meat it was. Was that an entire human hand? Eugh.)

In another room, he heard the creature talking, a low rumbling like stone on stone:

"I told you I could do it!"

"And you checked they were all human?" said another voice. It was female, and gentle, and might've been mistaken for human if they had been speaking a language any living humans might know, but they were not; it was a celestial language.

The creature said "Yeah! Yeah, of course. Of course I did that."

"Sweetheart, you know you have to do that, they're no good to eat if they're not human, and they might be dangerous."

"Right, which is why I checked," said the creature, who was a horrible liar. "They have hands and feet and everything!" The __child__, Crowley thought. Whatever it was -- and he had his suspicions -- it was a child.

"You'd better not have brought back another wolf," said the mother. "You _know_ we don't have room for a pet."

"I told you last time it was an accident! Anyway, she was so small for a wolf, and in such funny colors! We could've --"

"_No,_" said the mother.

"Fine, fine. Can I go outside now?"

"As long as you're back before dark," sighed the other voice -- the mother, he supposed.

Crowley waited a few moments to be sure the child was gone before slithering out of the sack full of humans. After a moment, Aziraphale made his way out, with some difficulty. "Ssstay here," he hissed at Aziraphale. "I'll handle thisss."

"No, no, I have a plan," said Aziraphale. Crowley didn't like the sound of that. "I'll go in, I'll explain she can't be -- can't be _demoning around _like this, and while she's distracted _you _slither out the door and _then _when I've got her good and frightened I'll find some excuse to leave the room and you can come in and suggest that she go back to Hell, and she'll be so pleased she has a face-saving way to leave --"

"That ssoundsss like an awful plan," Crowley said, bluntly.

"Nonsense, it'll be fine. I thought you wanted to work with me when it suited both our purposes. And this is _perfect _for --"

"Okay, assholes," said the female voice, from the door of the pantry. "What the _fuck _are you doing in my pantry?"

The demon was small and bony and pale as a cave fish, and she was letting all of her demon-ness show. Scales ran up her arms, her fingers ended in talons, and eagle's wings were folded behind her. The way she looked at him in particular reminded Crowley that sometimes eagles ate snakes.

"Oh! Nisroc! What a lovely surprise!" said Aziraphale.

Crowley gaped at him, or he would've if he'd been in a form that allowed for much facial expression.

"No, seriously, what are you doing?" she snapped. "You, whoever you are, come out of that snake form, it's making me antsy," she told Crowley. "And _you,_" she said, jabbing a talon at Aziraphale. "Why are you here?"

"Well, I have -- I have, unfortunately, terribly sorry to meet under such circumstances," Aziraphale started, but Crowley turned into his more-human form and stepped in front of him before he could keep going.

"I'm Crowley," he said. "I've been sent to bring you back to Hell, on Beelzebub's orders."

Nisroc rolled her eyes. "Let me guess, she wants me to make the slow-braised stuffed human hearts for her." She turned to Aziraphale. "Your turn. What do you want? Heaven's not calling me back, are they?"

Aziraphale appeared genuinely apologetic. "No, no, I'm so sorry, I've just --"

Nisroc threw back her head and laughed.

"Joking, hon, I was joking. Nah, I'm pretty much done with them anyway. They have a lousy maternity leave policy."

"Oh dear, is that why --"

"_How do you two know each other?_" Crowley demanded, unable to hold himself back any longer.

"Ah. Well," said Aziraphale. "There was this _fantastic _restaurant in Babylon --"

"No, no," said Nisroc, "it was in Ur."

"Was it? No, you're right, I was in Babylon with somebody else," said Aziraphale.

He'd been in Babylon with _Crowley, _who was having some very unpleasant and hard-to-articulate feelings about this whole conversation, and he didn't like the amused look Nisroc had just shot him.

"Did they really let you go over..." Aziraphale gestured, vaguely, at his entire torso, as if he was not entirely sure where pregnancy happened; as if he had not been _there _at the first birth.

"No, no, they were also _super _mad about me pretending to be a god, which -- look, I know for a _fact _Michael did like a twenty-year stint as Athena. That's just double standards. Anyway, why don't we all come out into the main room, sit down, and have a drink. I have some very good ale, if you'd like. It'll be a much more pleasant conversation sitting by the fire with good drinks."

"That sounds lovely!" said Aziraphale.

Crowley could not fucking _believe _this. "Yeah, sure, sounds great, with you in a sec," he said to Nisroc, then pulled Aziraphale aside. "What the _Heaven _are you doing, she's a _demon,_ you can't just trust her!"

"You're a demon too, you know," Aziraphale reminded him, as if he was not incredibly aware of this fact -- as if he had not had to work on Aziraphale for _thousands of years _to get Aziraphale to trust him. "Besides, I know her, she's not really so bad. She was an angel until a couple thousand years ago, after all."

Crowley took Aziraphale's shoulders and spun him around, and pointed out the various meats hanging in the pantry. "Not so bad?" he whispered in Aziraphale's ear.

"Well, I mean --"

"There's an entire human arm up there!" said Crowley.

"_Well._ That is. Yes. A bit worrisome," Aziraphale had to admit.

"Fine! Fine, you want to go have fun with your _old coworker, _that's fine," said Crowley. "The ale's probably drugged anyway. Or it might be made of people."

"Oh, Crowley," said Aziraphale, sounding exasperated, and went off, like an idiot, to go have drinks with a demon. Who was not him.

Crowley lurked on the sidelines for a bit, watching as Nisroc and Aziraphale had a grand old time sitting by the fire and drinking and gossiping about Heaven. At no point did Aziraphale bring up the whole eating humans thing. _Fine, fine, just blunder in like an idiot, that's what got you into this mess, angel. I should never have done this, I should never have suggested the arrangement at all, he's going to be a huge liability. _Crowley watched them both drink the ale with every indication of enjoyment, and Aziraphale had even complimented its flavor, so Crowley supposed he'd been wrong about the poison, which somehow made him even more irritated.

"Are you going to join us, Crawly, or are you going to sulk?" Nisroc said.

"It's _Crowley,_" snapped Crowley.

"Oh, sorry, I must have misheard," said Nisroc. "Come on, come sit down, have some ale." She smiled broadly; she had… a lot of teeth. "I won't bite."

"Fine, yes, give me a mug," said Crowley, and he sat, and he drank his ale, and he _really liked it,_ which made him even unhappier. Nisroc kept smirking at him like she knew what he was thinking, which she probably did, she could probably feel waves of irritation coming off of him, and that made him even more annoyed and determined to annoy back. "So I couldn't help but noticing, you've got an awful lot of human meat in the pantry."

"Is there something wrong with that?" Nisroc asked.

"Well -- well, actually, that's sort of what I've been sent to deal with," said Aziraphale, who was finally remembering that he was supposed to disapprove of Nisroc in general. "It is, actually, it's very -- well. It's extremely wrong. I'd think that would be obvious."

"My son has special dietary requirements," said Nisroc, as though that excused anything.

Crowley felt he should jump in now. "Right, look, that's all well and good -- ill and bad --"

"I know what you mean," said Nisroc, "don't worry about the stupid Infernal style guide. Look. I don't love it, I'm not proud of it, but it's what he needs to survive so I'm going to keep doing it. Grendel's a _good boy._" The spike of fear and anger he felt from her suggested this was actual, genuine sentiment.

A proper demon would've pressed the subject further, perhaps threatened to reveal the child's existence to Hell, or suggested that loyalty to one's offspring should pale before one's loyalty to Satan, or offered some sort of amnesty for the child that was well outside of his ability to guarantee.

Crowley was a proper demon, but he also appreciated nuance. "Look. The angel here needs to deal with whatever's eating people. __I__ need to bring you back to Hell to make the stuffed hearts thing for Beelzebub. Neither of us wants to threaten you, but frankly I think it'd be better for you and the kid if you just came clean about him and the both of you came back to Hell with me."

"Absolutely not," said Nisroc. "He's not going to Hell."

"Well then, leave him up here for a while and --"

"I'm not _abandoning my child,_" said Nisroc, raising her wings a bit.

Crowley was, he reminded himself, absolutely a proper demon; the fact that he was feeling a little dazed was probably just because it'd been a long, weird day already. "I can watch him for a while?" he blurted out.

Aziraphale stared at Crowley; Nisroc just started laughing. "No, definitely not."

"Well do you want the angel to smite the both of you? Because he will," said Crowley. "Look, I'm good with kids, I can --"

"_Aziraphale's _going to smite me?" Nisroc asked. "Aziraphale's a marshmallow."

"Excuse me, I am not," said Aziraphale, looking affronted. "I'd just prefer not to smite if it's possible to avoid it."

"What's a marshmallow?" Crowley asked.

Aziraphale and Nisroc exchanged a horrified look. "You've _never had a marshmallow?_" Nisroc asked.

"Oh, they're so good, someday you must try them," said Aziraphale, brightening.

Crowley took another swig of his ale. "Are we talking about the flowers, because --"

"No, no, no," said Nisroc, "the __roots,__ you make candy out of the roots and it's --"

"Oh, it's delicious," said Aziraphale.

"It really is," said Nisroc.

Crowley hated them both so much right now. He downed the rest of his ale and slammed down the mug. "Whatever! The _point _iss, I'm offering you a great deal and, and..." He was feeling woozy, for some reason. "And."

"Crowley, are you all right?" Aziraphale asked, looking concerned.

Nisroc did not look concerned in the least. She smiled at him. She had so many goddamn teeth.

Crowley tried to stand. "It'sss find, I'm fine, I'm --" He sat down again.

Aziraphale looked sharply at Nisroc. "What did you do to him?"

"Not fine, actually," said Crowley, taking great pains to articulate. He was dizzy now. "Did. Did you _poissson _me?" he asked Nisroc, although, really, of _course _she had. Everything seemed to be going slowly now, and all his limbs felt heavy and weird.

Aziraphale stood, knocking his stool over, and drew a knife on Nisroc, who only laughed.

Crowley slumped forward onto the table. Aziraphale was shouting something now, but he couldn't understand it at all.

* * * 

"What did you do to Crowley?" Aziraphale shouted, drawing his knife and springing at Nisroc. It wasn't a very large knife, but it was what he had on him, and Crowley was slumped over the table as if he was dead, and Nisroc -- she only _laughed._ "What was in that ale?"

"Nothing you didn't have in yours, Aziraphale, only I forgot I taught you that neat little trick you can do with your liver to sober up fast back in Ur, didn't I? But you didn't teach your little friend over there."

Aziraphale felt ill now, although it was because of guilt, not poison. He had indeed kept a miracle running to stay sober as he drank with Nisroc, since Crowley'd been so suspicious of her from the start. He'd assumed Crowley could do the same thing, but apparently it hadn't occurred to him.

Nisroc waved a hand and Crowley was bound neatly. She looked up at him with smug delight. "What will you give me for him?"

"What?" Aziraphale asked. "What makes you think I'd give you anything for -- he's not even my friend!"

"Right, sure," said Nisroc, smirking. "That's why he was emitting enough Envy to damn a monastery or three while we were hanging out, yeah. Or do you mean he's _more _than--"

"I'm not giving you _anything,_" said Aziraphale. "What makes you think I can't just take him and go?" He had a knife, after all.

"Aw. Really? You're gonna fight me with that little knife?"

Aziraphale turned to get Crowley, keeping the knife pointed at Nisroc. "No, I'm going to --"

"Nah. Try again." She grabbed his wrist and pressed into his palm with her thumb, the sharp talon slicing through his skin easily. He dropped the knife, and pulled his hand away from her with difficulty.

"Look, what do you _want?_" Aziraphale asked, taking a few steps back. If it was something small...

"Get my son into Heaven," said Nisroc, and she looked -- she looked _serious._

Never mind, then. "I can't do that, they'd -- they'd -- I'd _Fall,_" said Aziraphale. If not when he got to Heaven, before that in the process of lugging Grendel up there.

"Not -- I mean I know they'd never let him in the front door, you idiot," said Nisroc. "Smuggle him in somehow."

"_How?_" Aziraphale demanded.

"I don't know! You're smart, you think of something," said Nisroc. "But that's what I want."

"You know that's _mad,_ Nisroc. You know that's absolutely -- he's an _abomination! _ He's half-human, isn't he?"

"He's my son!" she snarled. "He didn't -- I didn't know it was going to be --"

"He _eats people. _You send him out to --"

"He doesn't know they're people!" shouted Nisroc. "I didn't tell him, he only -- he doesn't speak any human languages." She was crying now. "He thinks -- he thinks they're just -- you know. Beasts. It'd break his heart to know, and he can't -- he can't survive without them, so..."

"So you just didn't tell him," finished Aziraphale. He pitied her, he did, but he couldn't fix this.

She wiped tears out of her eyes with the palms of her hands, careful to keep the talons away from them. "Please, he's a good, _sweet _boy, he doesn't understand... and he wouldn't have to eat anything in Heaven, and he'd --"

"Nisroc, they would slaughter him as soon as he was discovered," said Aziraphale. "They would _destroy _him."

"So you won't even fucking try," said Nisroc. "Fine. You don't get your friend back."

"He's not my friend," said Aziraphale.

"Cool, cool, that's fine," said Nisroc. She picked up the knife Aziraphale'd dropped, and started towards Crowley.

"What are you doing?" Aziraphale asked.

She shrugged, her wings shifting. "Oh, well, if he's not your friend it's fine if I use his bones for broth stock --"

"Don't you _dare!_"

"What will you give me for him, then?" Nisroc asked again.

Aziraphale was going to give her a piece of his mind, certainly. He lunged at her tried to grab the knife out of her hand -- they both dropped it and it fell to the floor. She snarled and raked her claws at his face, but he stepped back. "You leave him _alone,_" said Aziraphale.

"You're really goddamn irritating, you know that?" said Nisroc, taking a step toward him, unfurling her wings. "What are you gonna do to me, huh? You gonna fight me? I know you don't have that dumb sword anymore."

"Oh, really, this is ridiculous, Nisroc, you can't --"

"What? What can't I do?" Nisroc asked, advancing on him, and her wings were somehow larger now. "I'm a fucking demon now, Aziraphale, all those shitty rules don't apply anymore, I can do..." and her face was twisting, becoming something else, and she was lunging forward "...whatever the fuck I _want._" She could on no account be mistaken for human now; she had a beak, she had feathers, she had a few feet on Aziraphale and she wasn't even standing upright anymore -- and Aziraphale turned and ran.

There was nowhere to go but the pantry, but that was all right, that was his plan. Not that he had a _good _plan, but he trusted that _the _Plan did not involve him being eaten by an enormous bird (...bird??? She still had teeth, though!) demon just now, because that would be such a stupid way to discorporate. He heard Nisroc scrambling after him, laughing.

He tried to raise the unconscious humans Grendel'd brought home in the sack, but it was no use, so he wrested a sword from one of them instead. When he turned, Nisroc was already blocking the way out. She took another swipe at him with one hand; he blocked her with the sword, and then pressed forward, striking at her eyes. She jerked her head back and he missed.

Aziraphale lit the sword -- oh, the holy fire wouldn't be enough to destroy a demon, not on a human-made sword, but it certainly would do more damage than regular fire. She took a few more steps back. "Aw, c'mon, you wouldn't really discorporate me, would you? Leave my kid all alone up here?"

"Ah," said Aziraphale, lowering his sword slightly, not taking his eyes off her. "No, you're right, that would be --" And as soon as she lowered her head to attack, he slashed across her face, piercing her right eye.

She made a horrible screech, and staggered back instinctively, eyes pressed shut. Aziraphale was able to get out of the pantry and into the main room, and there he saw he'd been right to wonder about the birdness of her, for the back half of her was leonine. "That's not fair!" she snarled, and tried to attack him.

But she'd misjudged the distance, and he stepped back easily enough. He unfurled his own wings, now he had more freedom of movement. "Thought you didn't like rules, Nisroc. Anyway, Crowley's the one who's a soft touch about children, not me." He grabbed Crowley, still lying limp and tied up against the wall, and started dragging him to the exit.

Nisroc stood in his way. Her right eye was useless for now, burnt out by the sword. "_No!_ You can leave him, or you can do me that favor, or I can beat the shit out of you. Which is it gonna be?"

"Get out of the way, Nisroc," said Aziraphale. "I fought in the War; you didn't." Admittedly, much of his contribution had involved standing in a somewhat disused corridor whacking any rebel angels who tried to get past him in the head with a T-square he'd picked up when the fighting started, but he'd been pretty handy with the T-square when it came down to it. He'd been defending the designs to all of life on what would be Earth; it was important to him.

"I was _busy!_" said Nisroc. She lashed out with a claw, and he was knocked away from Crowley and onto the floor. "Don't you _dare _imply I'm a coward, I got enough of that Up There. Fucking Gabriel had me redesigning human digestive systems fifty-seven times, it's not my fault I missed the whole thing."

He began to stagger to his feet, but Nisroc was closing in on him. "And then he rejected all my improvements anyway, the asshole. So don't give me that war shit." She tried to claw at his face, but he brought his sword up against her claw, then ducked under her foreleg and made it back to where Crowley lay.

He was trying to carry Crowley away again when a pain in his shoulder made him cry out in pain. Clutching him in her beak, Nisroc lifted him off the ground and shook him back and forth, and he fluttered his wings involuntarily, trying to escape. Then he brought the pommel of the sword down onto the top of her beak, and she dropped him with a shout. She leapt on him again, but once more, misjudged the distance, and he left a long gash along her ribs as he escaped once more.

Nisroc crouched low to the ground, cornering him against a wall. "Still willing to make that deal if you'd rather stop fighting. Or I can let you go on your own."

"Nisroc, I _cannot _get your son into Heaven," said Aziraphale, frustrated and angry and exhausted. "What do you even _want _with Crowley? I warn you, he's very annoying."

Nisroc pinned him down with one enormous clawed foreleg before he could move away. "Should I just keep you and let him go? Is that what you're saying?" She tilted her head. "That could work too."

"No, I'm -- for Heaven's sake let me _go,_ you ridiculous --" She squeezed, her claws digging into him, and he yelped. He swung the sword uselessly against the scales of her foreleg, and she winced but didn't let him go.

"Honestly, you're pretty annoying too, I'm having a tough time deciding. There's more meat on you, but Heaven might worry if you went missing." She tilted her head the other way. "Then again, they might not."

"You can't _eat _either of us!" said Aziraphale, who was now simply trying to lever her claws off of him with the sword. "That's -- that's _cannibalism._"

"Is it? I mean, it is if it's him, I guess," she said, nodding at Crowley. "But you're an _angel,_ and I'm not, not anymore. And Grendel's only half." She looked down at his work with the sword, irritably. "Ugh, stop that before you hurt yourself. That's my job." She bit his hand -- it was _excruciating_ \-- and he dropped the sword. She nudged it away with her beak, then appeared to swallow something. "Bleh. Fingers are definitely too bony for my taste, though."

Aziraphale held his hand in front of his face, and realized she'd _bitten off two of his fingers._ "You can't -- you can't just --" She coughed his signet ring up onto his chest. "You let me go at _once!_" he shouted. "When you discorporate me and I get back to Heaven, I'll, I'll -- they'll send more people after you!"

Nisroc laughed. "No, no, no, you're not going to discorporate. I won't let that happen. I can probably stretch out the meat with stew -- stew's great for that -- and you'd be surprised how much of your body you can survive without before I make you heal yourself up! Which is something humans certainly can't do."

Aziraphale looked at the sword out of the corner of his eye. It was probably still within grabbing distance, and the way she was standing now he could probably stab her in the neck.

Nisroc was still talking, which was ideal. "And hey! Parts of it even grow back by design, like livers! Those were my best work, you know, livers. You can blame Gabriel for the stuff that doesn't -- but _livers? _ Good, dependable organ. Anyway, isn't eating someone who can do healing miracles more ethical than eating humans? Nobody has to die and Grendel stays fed!"

Aziraphale liked a healthy philosophical argument -- which was to say, an argument he won. He decided if he was going to win this one he'd better get that sword back in a hurry. He turned to look at Crowley, still tied up, still motionless. "Oh, Crowley! Thank goodness!" he said, as if Crowley were awake and also somehow useful in this situation.

He grabbed the sword as Nisroc turned, and swung it against the side of her neck. "Aah! Bastard!" she cried, and he scrambled back as she tried to grab him again. He couldn't reach her neck any longer, but once he was on his feet he slid the blade between her shoulder and her foreleg, leaving her shrieking in pain for a few moments. He grabbed his signet ring, still sticky from blood and birdspit, and slid it onto his other pinky, as Nisroc was hobbling around trying to regain balance.

She was enraged now, and still half-blind, and she couldn't use her claws to swipe at him without losing her balance, so it was easy enough to stay on her left and avoid her beak. He let her chase him around in a circle, finding his way back to Crowley the long way around, and when he did, he stood in front of Crowley, spread his wings to shield him, and placed a simple blessing upon everything in front of him.

Nisroc collapsed and shrank back into her humanoid form. She looked like she'd been attacked by wolves, or a madman. She struggled to sit up. "You fucker," she said. "That _hurt._"

"Good," said Aziraphale. He put away his wings and hauled Crowley up onto his shoulder. "I wish I could say it was nice to see you again, but your hospitality leaves much to be desired, Nisroc."

"Well you're _terrible guests!_" shouted Nisroc from the floor.

"Thank you!" he said, brightly. He trudged to the doorway, carrying Crowley, and found that Nisroc's house was built in the midst of a great swamp. There did not appear to be any dry footpath out, and flying while carrying Crowley was more than he could manage just now, having only just blessed Nisroc so thoroughly. He supposed there was nothing for it but to wade through, so he transformed his stolen sword into a long walking stick, and began feeling his way through the swamp.

* * *

When Crowley regained consciousness, he did so slowly. His sense of smell was the first thing to come back, and the earthy smell of marshwater filled his nostrils. He didn't like it; something about it seemed unsafe. Then another sense came back -- not one of touch, but of movement. He was moving slowly and jerkily backwards, he thought, although orientation in space was a bit difficult.

His eyelids were heavy, and he couldn't really feel his arms or legs. Did he __have__ arms or legs? He usually didn't have eyelids when he had arms and legs, and besides, he remembered having them, at some point previously. Some point, which... which had been --

Crowley's eyes flew open. "Nrhg!" he exclaimed. His face was inches from swampy water, and someone -- someone must be carrying him.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale sounded worried. "Crowley, are you awake?"

Crowley opened his mouth to say things -- to ask questions like _What happened? _and _Where are we?_ and _Nisroc poisoned me!_, which, while it was not strictly speaking a question, demanded an answer. Something like "Yes, you were right, I should never have trusted her!" would have been the correct answer.

But unfortunately all that came out of Crowley's mouth was "Waah apah?"

"Crowley?" Aziraphale sounded even more worried.

"Tahh. Toahh." He couldn't properly feel his tongue. After a bit more experimental gibberish, he managed a reasonably comprehensible "Tongue'sss numb."

"Ah," said Aziraphale. "But you are awake?"

"Mmhmm," said Crowley. He carefully articulated "What. Happen?"

"Well," said Aziraphale, "Nisroc drugged both of us, only I -- I'm so sorry, I should've asked if you knew how to -- well, _anyway,_ you'd mentioned you thought she'd poison us so I decided to run a sort of, er, sobriety miracle just to keep a clear head, and apparently it worked on the poison too. Anyway, then I fought her off and got you out of there, and now we're... well. Now we're in a swamp. Do you think you could, er, possibly walk on your own?"

"Nuh," said Crowley, and then tried again. "No. Oh. Oh, that'sss. Better. 'Sss wearing off. Ssslowly. Bleah. Anyway. Can't feel my legsssss. I ssstill have thossse, yeah?"

"Oh, yes, all limbs accounted for," said Aziraphale, cheerfully enough. "Didn't let Nisroc eat any of them."

"_Eat?_" Crowley asked.

"Well I suppose it would've been her son -- look, there's a little island coming up, I think we can both sit down on it, let's rest a while," said Aziraphale. He put Crowley down on something that squelched, and propped him up carefully. He was muddy, and bloodstained in places, and he had fat leeches the size of his fingers hanging off anywhere there was a wound.

"Eugh," said Crowley, as Aziraphale began to pick the leeches off.

"Yes, I expect it comes of -- well, Nisroc's son might not have very good control of his -- er, miracles, I suppose they would be. Makes everything grow more. _Everything._" He nodded at the lush swamp around them.

"Oh," said Crowley. "Yeah." He opened and closed his hands in front of his face, slowly. There was an unpleasant tingling feeling coming back into them. "Think I'm getting less poissoned," he said.

"You're certainly hissing less, that's probably a good sign," said Aziraphale.

Crowley watched him pick a particularly stubborn leech off a nasty-looking cut in his side, and noticed something amiss. "What happened to your fingers?"

"Ah. Nisroc ate them," said Aziraphale. He held up his other hand. "Got my ring back, though!"

Crowley frowned at him. "Oh good," he said, "I was worried for a minute there. That's the important thing, really, that you've got your ring."

"Got your sense of sarcasm back too, apparently," said Aziraphale.

Clumsily, Crowley grabbed his wounded hand. Aziraphale winced as he inspected the stumps. They were still bleeding. "And you haven't got them to grow back yet?"

"I had to bless Nisroc so she'd stop fighting me," said Aziraphale. "It took a bit out of me."

"I could stop the bleeding, at least," said Crowley. "Might make the leeches less interested." Aziraphale looked very uncertain, and was taking too long to object, so Crowley just did it for him. "Sorry, ssorry," he said at Aziraphale's sharp intake of breath. The wounds were scabby and the flesh near it was a livid red, but for the time being it wouldn't bleed into the water. "I can do that for the rest of the wounds?" he offered hopefully. Aziraphale's hand was warm in his own, and he realized that full feeling had returned to his hands at last. "Also, I think I can probably walk if we wait a bit. Might as well heal you up a bit, yeah?"

And so Aziraphale allowed him to heal all the nasty scrapes he'd somehow acquired in the fight. "What kind of weapon was she even using?" Crowley asked, examining a deep, wide gouge in his side.

"She turned into a griffin," said Aziraphale.

"Ah," said Crowley. "That doesn't seem very fair." He liked snakes and all, but well, if some latecomer fallen angel could be a griffin, he didn't see why he couldn't be a hydra or a dragon or something.

"I don't think she cared much about that," said Aziraphale.

"Well, no, I just --" He decided not to explain his thought process to Aziraphale, who was gritting his teeth against the pain of demonic healing and probably didn't need to hear how petty Crowley was being. "Anyway, why didn't you just leave me there, I'm sure you could've run out the door without lugging me."

"I couldn't leave you there!" said Aziraphale, horrified.

"Oh, please, she'd have got sick of me in three days tops, I can be _very _annoying. Did you tell her that? I bet you told her that."

"No!" said Aziraphale. Crowley could tell he was lying, and laughed. "It's only, she was -- she was going to keep us in her pantry."

"Yeah?"

"As. As an ongoing part of the pantry," said Aziraphale.

Crowley frowned. "So, like, butchered and --"

"No, no, she was going to ah. Keep us alive while it happened."

They were both silent for a moment. Finally, Crowley said, "Well that's just fucked up."

"I can't really disagree," said Aziraphale.

"No wonder Beelzebub likes her," said Crowley. He suddenly remembered why he'd been sent here in the first place. "Oh. Oh, fuck."

"What is it?" Aziraphale asked.

"Well. I was supposed to get her to agree to come back to Hell to cook that stuffed hearts thing," said Crowley.

"Crowley, I _hope _you're not thinking of going back there to --"

"No! No, I'm not. Couldn't pay me. I mean," he said, considering, "they don't pay me, but if they started I'd still stay well away."

"Well," said Aziraphale. "I failed too. I couldn't deal with the issue of whatever demonic activity Heaven sent me to deal with -- which presumably was her."

"Suppose it's a wash, then," said Crowley, glumly.

"Not -- not _entirely,_" said Aziraphale. "I mean. You did prevent an angel from fulfilling his duties to smite another demon."

"By, what, lying there unconscious?"

"Yes! Maybe I could've dealt with her more easily if you hadn't been there," said Aziraphale. He seemed oddly cheerful about this.

"Well, thanks," said Crowley. Not like he could help it. "Really, though, it sounds like you might not have had to fight her at all if I hadn't been there."

"Oh, no, don't tell anyone that," said Aziraphale. "No, no, what I meant is, that's what you put down in your report, that you prevented me from discorporating her. And I'll say that, er, I kept a demon from eating somebody. I don't need to mention the somebody was you, and also me."

Crowley smiled. "You know, that actually works. I think we're getting a hang of this arrangement, angel," he said. "Now. I _think _I can walk, but I don't know if I can quite stand on my own -- help me up?"

And Aziraphale pulled him unsteadily to his feet. They made their way slowly and squelchingly through the marsh, Crowley leaning on Aziraphale, and Aziraphale leaning on his walking stick. It was cold, and it was wet, and there were leeches, but nobody (aside from the leeches) was trying to eat them now, and at least they had company.


End file.
